Carlson, Wideman prepared to give Capitals' Power Play a Charge

With heightened expectations for the Washington Capitals
entering the 2011-12 NHL campaign, the blue line promises to be an
area of scrutiny for the prohibitive favorites to lead the Eastern
Conference during the regular season.

John Carlson (Marlborough, Mass.) and Dennis Wideman are two
players who could benefit the most from Washington’s depth on
the blue line especially when it comes to the power play. With Mike
Green and Roman Hamrlik in the mix, the foursome promises to make a
lethal offense that much more dangerous this season.

“The season’s starting now,” Carlson
(pictured left) said after practice Thursday. “We
started off simple and now we’re getting closer to the season
and we’re getting into more specific stuff.”

Addressing questions about the lethality of his club especially
with the man advantage has become old hat for Carlson, who spent
his rookie season seeing a good amount of time on special teams.
With seven goals and 37 points in all 82 games for Washington,
Carlson shined, and will have a chance to build on that successful
individual performance.

Still, things ended with bitter disappointment when the power
play couldn’t solve Dwayne Roloson and the Tampa Bay
Lightning, who swept the heavily-favored Caps in the second round.
Washington didn’t have the services of Wideman, who was
recovering from a leg infection that kept him out of the
postseason, but with the 28-year-old fully healthy, plus Hamrlik on
board, this group could be a real handful for opponents all
year.

“You’re never happy when people are injured and out
of the lineup,” said Carlson. “A healthy team is the
best team and right now, we’re doing pretty good in that
department.”

Like the rest of the team, Carlson is working on getting his
overall timing and game back after the summer layoff, but
doesn’t set the bar low when projecting what he needs to
address at the young age of 21.

“I think I’d like to do a lot of things
better,” Carlson said. “We’ll see how the season
goes, how it’s starting. We have a great team, and I’m
just going to be here every day, work as hard as I can and find my
place and just play my game.”

Wideman is in his first full year with the Capitals after coming
over from the Florida Panther’s at the trade deadline.
Although he missed the playoffs because of a strange leg infection,
but is healthy and glad to be back to work.

“Right now, we’ve still got a lot of guys here, so I
haven’t been on the ice with Ovi or guys like that
yet,” Wideman told New England Hockey Journal after the
second session. “(Thursday) was my first day with (Nicklas
Backstrom. At this time, you’re not really getting the feel,
because a lot of the guys you haven’t really seen yet. But,
as you go forward and the numbers start getting down, it’s
definitely beneficial to be practicing a lot more going into the
season with the team than just coming in halfway
through.”

Like Carlson, Wideman has been around the team enough that
he’s not a new face, and even though there may be some bigger
names on the blue line. Both are being counted on to help keep the
Capitals near the top of the NHL’s elite clubs.

“When you can roll three-deep there (on defense) or
three-deep can play a lot of minutes, you can obviously play harder
at 20 minutes than you can at 27,” Wideman said of the
club’s blue line depth. “So, I think that when you can
play guys in all situations and a lot, it should keep us healthier
and give us a lot more energy come playoff time than in past
years.”

Given that depth, Carlson knows that the work done at this point
will be important for earning coach Bruce Boudreau’s trust
going forward.

“Just get better,” Carlson said when asked what his
focus is for this stage of training camp. “It doesn’t
matter what you can do in the summer– there’s nothing
like training camp. There’s nothing like getting in the games
again. It’s basically just, go out there and do whatever you
can to get better.”

With a nasty offense that has been going full throttle since
2008, the team had struggled to make the difference at the defense
and goaltending positions. However, general manager George McPhee
made some bold moves to inject skill, experience and depth at all
positions. With those moves come higher expectations, but Wideman
is used to such situations, having come from the Boston Bruins, who
finished as the top club in the Eastern Conference in 2009, only to
get bounced by Carolina in a second-round playoff upset.

“This team has had high expectations for the past few
years,” he said. “Our guys are one year older, and now
we’re not really all that young anymore. I think this is the
year we have to make a statement and we’re built to do that.
We’ve got some key guys who are older and have been around
and should add leadership to the room.

“I think that going forward, we’re real solid on
defense and obviously, Tomas Vokoun bolsters us in the net. I think
this is the year we gotta go.”